1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a home care system in which a center terminal and a patient terminal are detachably connected to each other through communication lines, such as a public telephone line, ISDN (integrated services digital network), CATV (cable television), radio and the like, and further to center terminals and patient terminals which constitute such a home care system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a home care service capable of practicing care such as rehabilitation at home is noticed in view of the fact that national medical expenses are reduced and patient's comfortability has been advanced. And there is made such an attempt that patient's homes and a home care center such as a hospital and a door-to-door nurse station are connected through visual communication lines such as a video telephone line and CATV so that the patient's care is conducted through communications between the home care center and the patients.
However, according to the conventional attempt, the general visual communication terminals are appropriated without any changes, and there are not almost considered a facility of the application of the home care center, a facility of the use of the patient terminals and the like.
In order to push forward with the home care service utilizing the visual communication terminals, there is a need to construct a home care system sufficiently taking into consideration such application of the home care center, a facility of the use of the terminals and the like.
The conventional home care system involves, for example, the following problems.
(1) In the home care system utilizing the general visual communication terminals, even when a call occurs in an emergency from a patient, it is impossible to grasp the state of the patient, if th e center is "busy" on another line.
(2) In the home care system utilizing the general visual communication terminals, it is impossible to automatically access to the patient terminal and to automatically upload data in the patient terminal.
(3) Hitherto, it is a current situation that newcomers learn measures in the care spot from a veteran public health nurse. Consequently, it would be difficult to efficiently educate competent persons who are available in the spot.
(4) In the home care system utilizing the general visual communication terminals, if a patient's room is dark, it would be difficult to clearly see the patient's expression. Further, in the patient terminal, even if it is desired to record an instruction from the home care center, there is frequent such a case that a patient is a person of advanced age or a patient is not familiar with the operation of the equipment, and thus it would be difficult for the patient to perform an operation for recording.
There are made some proposals to solve the above-mentioned problems on the conventional home care system (refer to, for example, Japanese patent application serial No. 144093/1993 and Japanese patent application serial No. 336435/1993). However, there is not yet proposed a satisfactory means of solving the above-mentioned problems.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object to provide a home care system taking into consideration the application of the system and a facility of the use of the terminals, and further center terminals and patient terminals which constitute such a home care system.